Two children suddenly vanished

In September 2019, sixteen-year-old Tylee Ryan and her seven-year-old brother, Joshua “JJ” Vallow, disappeared after moving with their mother, Lori Vallow, to Rexburg, Idaho.

At first, no one outside the family fully understood that the children were missing.

There was no immediate public alert, no desperate appeal from their mother and no clear explanation of where they had gone. Instead, weeks passed without confirmed sightings of either child.

Tylee was last seen on September 8 during a family visit to Yellowstone National Park. JJ was last seen alive on September 22 at the family’s apartment in Rexburg. He was wearing red pajamas in one of the last known photographs taken of him.

The two children had different personalities and needs. Tylee was approaching adulthood and was known as a protective older sister. JJ was an energetic young boy who had autism and depended heavily on the people caring for him. Their disappearance would eventually expose a series of lies, deaths and extreme beliefs hidden within their own family.

A request for a welfare check raised disturbing questions

Concern intensified in November 2019 when JJ’s grandparents, Larry and Kay Woodcock, realized they had not spoken with him for weeks.

On November 26, police visited Lori’s Rexburg apartment to perform a welfare check. According to subsequent reporting and court records, Lori gave authorities conflicting explanations about JJ’s location. She reportedly claimed that he was staying with a friend in Arizona, but investigators were unable to verify the story.

When officers returned with a search warrant the following day, they discovered that Lori and her new husband, Chad Daybell, had abruptly left the area.

Tylee and JJ were officially declared missing in December. Relatives publicly pleaded for the children to be returned and later offered a reward for information leading to their safe recovery.

The question spread across America:

Where were the children?

Yet the adults closest to them offered few convincing answers.

A marriage surrounded by unexplained deaths

By the time police began searching for Tylee and JJ, several other troubling events had already taken place.

Lori’s fourth husband, Charles Vallow, had been shot and killed in Arizona in July 2019 by her brother, Alex Cox. Cox claimed he acted in self-defense and was not charged at the time. He later died in December 2019.

Chad Daybell was still married to Tammy Daybell when he developed a relationship with Lori. Tammy died suddenly in October 2019. Her death was initially attributed to natural causes, but investigators later exhumed her body and determined that she had died from asphyxiation.

Just two weeks after Tammy’s death, Chad and Lori married in Hawaii.

The timing of the marriage, the children’s disappearance and the other deaths surrounding the couple transformed the case from a missing-person investigation into something far more complex.

Extreme beliefs entered the investigation

Prosecutors later presented evidence that Chad and Lori had developed an extreme spiritual belief system involving an approaching apocalypse, supernatural missions and people supposedly becoming possessed by “dark” spirits.

Witnesses said Lori referred to Tylee and JJ as “zombies”—a term the group allegedly used for people whose original spirits had left their bodies.

Investigators and prosecutors argued that these beliefs were used to dehumanize the victims and justify removing people whom the couple viewed as obstacles. The case involved a private and radical ideology rather than the mainstream teachings of a wider religious community.

Prosecutors also alleged financial motives. Lori continued receiving Social Security benefits intended for Tylee and JJ after their deaths, while Chad received money connected to Tammy’s life-insurance policies.

Lori and Chad were found in Hawaii—but the children were not with them

Authorities eventually located Lori and Chad in Kauai, Hawaii, in January 2020.

Lori was served with a court order requiring her to produce the children. She failed to do so and was arrested in February on charges initially related to child abandonment and nonsupport.

She was extradited to Idaho and remained in custody.

But Tylee and JJ were still missing, and their relatives continued hoping that they might somehow be found alive.

Investigators examined financial records, phone data, surveillance footage and the movements of those closest to the children. Particular attention was placed on Alex Cox, whose cellphone location records allegedly placed him near Chad Daybell’s rural Idaho property shortly after each child was last seen.

Those records eventually helped direct investigators to the place where the search would end.

The discovery that destroyed the family’s remaining hope

On June 9, 2020, law-enforcement officers searched Chad Daybell’s property near Rexburg.

There, investigators discovered human remains.

The victims were soon identified as Tylee Ryan and JJ Vallow. Their bodies had been concealed in separate locations on the property where Chad had lived with his family.

JJ’s body was found wrapped in plastic and secured with duct tape. A forensic pathologist later determined that he died from asphyxia caused by a plastic bag being placed over his head and tape covering his mouth.

Tylee’s remains were badly burned and fragmented, preventing examiners from identifying the precise method used to kill her. Her death was nevertheless ruled a homicide.

What had begun as a nationwide search for two missing children was now a multiple-murder investigation.

Chad was arrested on the day the remains were found.

Evidence connected the property to the killings

During the later trials, prosecutors presented cellphone records, text messages, financial evidence and physical evidence collected from Chad’s property.

Tylee’s DNA was discovered on tools found in a shed. Investigators also examined messages Chad had sent to Tammy on the day prosecutors believed Tylee was buried. In one message, Chad described shooting and burying a raccoon in the family’s pet cemetery—a claim authorities considered suspicious when compared with the cellphone data and location of Tylee’s remains.

Prosecutors argued that Chad, Lori and Alex Cox had worked together in a conspiracy involving the deaths of Tylee, JJ and Tammy.

Cox died before he could be charged or tried, leaving many questions about his precise role unanswered.

Lori Vallow Daybell’s trial

Lori’s Idaho trial began in 2023 and lasted approximately seven weeks.

Prosecutors portrayed her as a willing participant who helped create the circumstances leading to her children’s deaths, concealed what had happened and continued collecting their government benefits afterward.

The defense argued that Chad had manipulated Lori through his spiritual claims and that there was insufficient evidence showing she had personally carried out the killings.

On May 12, 2023, the jury found Lori guilty of first-degree murder in the deaths of Tylee and JJ, conspiracy charges connected to the children and Tammy Daybell, and grand theft.

She received three consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole, along with a separate sentence for fraudulently collecting the children’s benefits.

At sentencing, Lori continued insisting that she had communicated with the victims after their deaths and denied wrongdoing. Her statements offered little comfort to relatives who had spent months searching for the children and years waiting for accountability.

Chad Daybell faced a separate jury

Chad was tried separately in 2024.

Prosecutors accused him of building the belief system that helped justify the killings and of participating in a conspiracy motivated by his relationship with Lori, financial gain and the removal of people considered obstacles.

His defense attempted to place greater responsibility on Lori and Alex Cox. Attorneys argued that the evidence did not prove Chad personally committed the killings.

The jury rejected that argument.

Chad was convicted of murdering Tylee, JJ and Tammy, along with conspiracy and fraud-related charges. On June 1, 2024, an Idaho jury unanimously sentenced him to death.

Family members described the verdict as justice, while acknowledging that no punishment could restore the lives that had been taken.

Chad later entered Idaho’s maximum-security prison system and appealed his conviction and death sentence.

Additional convictions followed in Arizona

The Idaho trials did not end the legal proceedings surrounding Lori.

She was later returned to Arizona to face charges connected to Charles Vallow’s death and the attempted killing of her former nephew-in-law, Brandon Boudreaux.

In April 2025, a jury found Lori guilty of conspiring to murder Charles. In June, she was also convicted of conspiring in the attempted killing of Boudreaux.

She received two additional life sentences in July 2025, to be served consecutively. She was subsequently returned to the Pocatello Women’s Correctional Center in Idaho.

As of the most recent reporting, Chad remains on Idaho’s death row while pursuing an appeal. The two remain legally married despite their convictions and incarceration.

Warning signs hidden behind a family’s closed doors

The case raised painful questions about how two children could disappear for months without an immediate public alarm.

Tylee was no longer regularly attending school. JJ had been withdrawn from his elementary school under the explanation that he would be educated at home. Relatives had difficulty contacting them, while adults around the children provided changing accounts about their whereabouts.

No individual warning sign necessarily reveals that a serious crime has occurred. Taken together, however, unexplained absences, sudden isolation, conflicting stories and attempts to prevent contact can demand closer attention.

Tylee and JJ were especially vulnerable because the people controlling access to them were also the people expected to explain where they were.

More than names in a murder trial

The complexity of the case sometimes threatens to overshadow the two young people at its center.

Tylee Ryan was not simply a victim described in court documents. She was a teenager approaching adulthood, known for her independence, humor and devotion to her younger brother.

JJ was remembered as affectionate, energetic and compassionate. His grandmother described a little boy who frequently checked whether the people around him were okay.

Their older brother, Colby Ryan, later described the loss as the destruction of nearly his entire family. His children would never know Tylee’s kindness or JJ’s playful personality.

Neither child had any responsibility for the beliefs, relationships or financial conflicts surrounding the adults in their lives.

They deserved safety.

They deserved honesty.

They deserved the chance to grow up.

A case America will not easily forget

The disappearance of Tylee Ryan and JJ Vallow captured national attention because it represented a profound betrayal of trust.

For months, strangers hoped that the children were hidden somewhere and could still be rescued. The discovery on Chad Daybell’s property ended that hope but began the long process of uncovering what had happened.

The trials brought convictions and severe sentences. They exposed deception, financial motives and an extreme belief system that prosecutors said was used to justify murder.

But legal accountability cannot reverse the tragedy.

The most lasting responsibility is to remember Tylee and JJ not for the disturbing actions of the adults around them, but for the lives and futures that were taken from them.

Their disappearance began with one unanswered question:

Where are the children?

The answer shocked a nation—and ensured that their names would never be forgotten.